Operations/shunting article in July MR?

[steinjr]

Thanks for this feedback! I'm intrigued enough to at least try it.

So, basically, how does it work? For example, do a bunch of freight cars having a blue tab go to one siding and, say, a bunch of freight cars having a red tab get delivered to another?

Could anyone elaborate further -- thanks!

It is a pretty simple idea that doesn't really take much elaboration. Simplest form is "blue tabs to blue siding, yellow tabs to yellow siding".

Version used in article was: "blue tabs to blue area, two letter code written on tab identifies the specific industry/track in area".

Author also had flags for cars to interchanges. To make it a little more interesting, he decided that he would reserve one color for his interchange (where cars enter and leave his railroad). Cars bound for interchanges get dark green tabs - cut to a triangular shape if the car is empty (so it can be borrowed for an outbound load from somewhere else on your layout if necessary).

Example:
Car will be first going to Cosgrove Chemicals to pick up a load, then to Wright oods for unloading, then returned empty to Santa Fe interchange.

Santa Fe interchange is dark green flag.
Wright foods is in the yellow area, industry code WF
Cosgrove chemicals is in the orange area, industry code CC

So he puts the following stickers on the car:
bottommost: triangular (empty) dark green (to Santa Fe interchange) - ie car can be appropriated for a load on it's way to the interchange
next, a little offset so you can see the flag under, yellow tag with letters WF (Wright Foods)
top, a little offset so you can see the flag under, orange tag with letters CC (Cosgrove Chemicals)

Everything taken into account, not all that much easier to set up than waybills. You of course save a car card (the car itself is it's own car card). But people who get overwhelmed by trying to figure out in advance a list of journeys a car will make (necessary to make waybills) will have the exact same trouble figuring out what to put on the stickers and in what order to put the stickers on the car. The stickers really are waybills - they just are smaller and potentially harder to read waybills.

It obviously can be easier if someone else has already labeled the cars for you and you just drive the trains and delivers the cars, since you only need to look at the car to see where the car goes next. And of course - either remember your color codes and industry abbreviations, or look them up as you go.

Saves you from first looking at the car to find it's reporting mark and number and then shuffle through your car cards for that train to find the right car card w/attached waybill for that car. Btw - if you have cars that looks a little different (instead of all red boxcars from the same company :-), nothing prevents you from adding a description of your car (or a picture of your car) to your car cards to make it easier to match car and car card, rather than having to read the number from the side of the car.

You won't have an easy system to keep track of how long the car has been unloading, or whether there are cars to be pulled in an area - as you would do by having various boxes (labeled e.g. "set out", "hold", "pull") in the area to keep the car cards in, and advancing the cards from box to box between operating sessions.

Instead someone just decides when it is time to peel off the top sticker. When you switch the area, to decide whether there are any cars to be pulled in an area, you don't look in the box of car cards/waybills or on your switch list - you look at all cars on all sidings in the area to see if there are any cars with a sticker that is not right for the place the car sits.

The system as described without doubt works just fine. But it is not a magic bullet.

It still takes some thinking to decide where the car a car bound for some industry will come from, and where it will go after the industry is done with it.

And, of course - you tend lose quite a bit of flavor. On a waybill you have plenty of room, so you can add information about what a car is loaded with or will be loaded with, as well as special handling instructions ("tank cars has to be spotted at the far end of the building, where the unloading hoses are" or "car must not be moved if partially unloaded" or whatever). Doesn't make any difference if what you want to do just is "put car on track/get car from track", I guess.

Smile,
Stein